


Independent Variable

by futuresoon



Series: Loosely connected stories about Sho Minazuki [2]
Category: Persona 4
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 23:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3707147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futuresoon/pseuds/futuresoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The boy who should be Sho Minazuki frowns and says, “You’re not actually very nice, are you,” and Ikutsuki has the sinking feeling that he’s made a very big mistake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Independent Variable

The boy who should be Sho Minazuki frowns and says, “You’re not actually very nice, are you,” and Ikutsuki has the sinking feeling that he’s made a very big mistake.

\---

“Well, we should give you a name.”

“You call him Sho.”

“Sho Minazuki, yes.”

“But you don’t call him Minazuki. You call him Sho.”

“That’s true.”

“Then you can call me Minazuki. It’s easy to remember.”

“…all right, then, Minazuki-kun.”

“-kun is for male friends, yes? Just Minazuki will do.”

And the sinking feeling intensifies.

\---

It isn’t just the tone of Minazuki’s voice that’s different from Sho’s. He sounds fundamentally different, lower, older. Well, he is a different person. It makes sense.

The age, though. Definitely older. Minazuki is younger than Sho by quite a bit, but you’d think he was an adult, the way he talks.

Plumes of Dusk come from Nyx, and Nyx represents the depths of the collective human unconscious. Someone who was more or less born there would quite possibly have a broader range of knowledge than someone who, say, hasn’t seen the outside world since they were five years old.

Sometimes it seems like Sho knows things he shouldn’t, these days.

\---

“Your reaction time was slower than usual, Minazuki.”

“He wasn’t a threat. I didn’t need to pay attention.”

“He was armed, and you weren’t.”

“I don’t see how that makes a difference.”

“The purpose of this test was to see how much of a difference it made.”

“Well, he’s not armed anymore, is he?” The boy blinks, and giggles. “Or legged, for that matter!”

\---

Minazuki says his Persona is called Tsukiyomi. The god of the moon. 

No one told Sho about gods.

\---

“Minazuki, may I speak to Sho-kun?”

“He can hear you. Say what you will.”

“No, I would like him to be the one answering me. Please bring Sho-kun back out.”

“Man, what’s your problem? He said I could hear you. What do you want, anyway?”

“I don’t see you much anymore, Sho-kun. Am I not allowed to miss you?”

“…sorry, dad.”

Genuine contrition in his eyes.

“It’s been a while since we’ve tried an endurance test. I think it’s about time for one.”

“…okay, dad.”

But there’s something colder in them now.

\---

It isn’t that Sho’s performing poorly now. He’s better than ever. He’s faster, stronger, quicker to identify and attack a weakness. 

It’s the way Minazuki looks around a room even when there’s nothing left to fight in it. Doors. Windows. Security codes.

\---

It’s so off-handed, how Sho says, “You know, Minazuki says your jokes are kinda stupid.”

\---

The security cameras in Sho’s room used to show him practicing, pacing around, reading the occasional book Ikutsuki gave him.

They still show those things. But now they sometimes show him talking to someone who isn’t there.

\---

And listening to his responses, of course.

\---

“What happened to the other kids?”

It hasn’t been so many years that Sho would forget his younger opponents. It isn’t strange that Minazuki would ask the question. He’s been preparing for this, actually.

“They all dropped out, eventually,” is the smooth, cultivated answer. “None of them were as strong as Sho-kun.”

“Were they the same age as Sho when they came here?”

“Yes, they were.”

“How old were they when they dropped out?”

“Oh, various ages. The last one left a couple years ago.”

Three of them did escape, some time ago. None of the others made it past age ten.

“Where did they go?”

“We arranged for them to be put into foster care. That’s a service for children who have no parents to be raised by other families.”

“Would Sho go into foster care if he left?”

“He would, if he wanted to.”

Sho doesn’t legally exist. He isn’t going anywhere.

“What are the other families like?”

“My, you’re full of questions today, Minazuki.”

“And you’re certainly full of answers, aren’t you.”

\---

Almost one month to the day after Minazuki’s inadvertent creation, he disobeys his first order.

And his second. And his third.

Later, Ikutsuki will reflect on the fact that all punishments had the exact opposite effect.

\---

“Sho told me how he got this scar.”

“Did he, now.”

“It seems to me as if it could have been avoided.”

“Does it.”

“He wasn’t feeling well that day.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

“You could have halted the test.”

“Minazuki, this facility has certain standards to uphold. It provided useful data.”

“Would you have sent him to foster care if it had sliced open his eyes instead?”

“It’s time to go back to your room and sleep, Minazuki.”

“Do you know what he dreams about?”

That catches his attention. “What?”

“He doesn’t. Sometimes he isn’t sure the outside world exists.”

“Goodnight, Minazuki.”

“I can’t think of anything good about it.”

\---

The books Ikutsuki gave Sho every now and then are simple, nothing fancy. Just things to keep his mind occupied while he isn’t testing or training. Ergo Research wants their prize weapon to at least know how to read. 

Pre-approved war stories, mostly. But Minazuki takes a liking to detective fiction. He says he likes being able to figure out how a story will end.

Sho hasn’t touched the age-worn joke books in weeks.

\---

“Hey dad, what’s the difference between Minazuki and the ocean?”

“What?”

“You let me see Minazuki.”

\---

Sho nearly died on the operating table when they transplanted the Plume of Dusk into him. Ikutsuki doesn’t want to risk that happening again. 

But something must be done. If Sho’s mind is poisoned any further, he may become completely useless to them. And Ikutsuki hates to waste their most promising subject.

So one day, he gives Sho a drink he says is an experimental medicine for increasing speed of cell regrowth, and he gets the surgeons ready.

Twenty minutes later, he’s bleeding out on the testing room floor and alarm bells are ringing through the entire facility and quite a few things are on fire, and it takes eight security guards to subdue Minazuki before he breaks through the front door.

At least the facility has an excellent medical area. Ikutsuki gets the bed right next to the one holding the vegetative body of his former favorite test subject.

\---

Maybe it’s sentiment that makes Ikutsuki decide to send Sho to a civilian hospital. They’re closing down the facility; the only other way of dealing with him is to take him off life support and make a visit to the nearby crematorium that doesn’t ask questions.

It’s definitely sentiment that, in a moment of unexpected soul-searching, causes Ikutsuki to make Sho the sole beneficiary of his not insignificant finances. But he doesn’t have any actual children. On the off chance that the Fall does not proceed as it should--the _very small_ off chance--it might not be a bad thing, to ensure that the hospital receives enough funds to keep a coma patient on a likely permanent basis.

Ikutsuki remembers a six-year-old covered in blood and beaming like he got the highest score in the class, and a fifteen-year-old quietly asking questions he had already guessed the answers to, and--well, it doesn’t matter.

\---

“This is where they buried you, huh? Sheesh. I’m surprised they didn’t need to consecrate the ground.

“I’m not gonna say I forgive you or some shit like that. You were a shitty person and I wish I’d been the one who put you in here. 

“I just wanted to say…fuck, I don’t know. Goodbye, I guess? It took me this long to find where you were. Things are pretty different now. I’m trying to put shit behind me, or something like that.

“So goodbye, or whatever. Be grateful I don’t feel like knocking over your tombstone.

“…he says goodbye, too.”

And he does.


End file.
